British film/television screenwriter and playwright.
Born in Tottenham, Middlesex, Ted Willis (later Baron Willis) worked on many well-known television series in a career that spanned the late 1940s to the late 1980s. Following the end of World War II, in which he served in the Royal Fusiliers, Willis began writing for the Unity Theatre (St Pancras, London). In 1948, he contributed the screenplay to his first film, Good-Time Girl. During his career, three of his screenplays were nominated for British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTAs): Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), No Trees in the Street (1959), and Flame in the Streets (1961). Also among the dozen or more films that Willis worked on as screenwriter are The Undefeated (1949), A Boy, A Girl and a Bike (1949), The Blue Lamp (1950), Blueprint for Danger (1952), Trouble in Store (1953), Burnt Evidence (1954), and One Good Turn (1955).
Willis's extensive television career as a writer includes a number of notable British series, including Dixon of Dock Green (1955-1963), The Days of Vengeance (1960), Flower of Evil (1961), and The Adventures of Black Beauty (1972-1973). In the early 1970s, he also wrote two scripts for the Australian television series Boney (1972-1973).
A charismatic personality and an excellent public speaker, Willis was politically active for most of his life. In 1937, he was elected to the position of Chairman of the Labour League of Youth, and four years later became Secretary General of the Young Communist League. In 1963, he was awarded a life peerage with the title Baron Willis, of Chislehurst in the County of Kent. He married the actress Audrey Hale in 1944 and they had a son (John Willis, a BBC director) and a daughter (Sally). He died of a heart attack at his home in Chislehurst, Kent in 1992.
